Traumas-listing

If you had to make a list of your traumas, could you make a list of the tops ones that are impacting you the most? Have you worked on all of them in therapy or just one? What therapy has worked best for you. Is there anything you would have done different?

My CPTSD traumas are quite a mixed bag, but interactions with my father are probably the biggest impact, although there are others too.

My PTSD traumas are related to my daughter for the most part and that's primarily what I've worked on in therapy, which for the most part have been related to crisis counseling. My therapist has mentioned EMDR to me.

We have started to work on "me" a little more and our first goal is the instill positive thoughts before digging into the trauma. I've told her some of it, but not all, that will come in time.

Well got a run. My power just went off. We spent Monday night through Thursday afternoon with no power and now it just went out again.

I guess what I'm asking is do you think all of the traumas have to be addressed before you can feel better? Or maybe just the top three that makes people struggle the most?
Dang, hope you get your power back soon.

Power came back on a little while ago.

I honestly don't know. I know what I remember but I have a lot of fragmented memories that I'm not sure I even want to know what's behind them, but if I had to give a top three traumas that I think may be part of what makes me struggle the most all are related to my father's verbal abuse of me, and physical abuse of my mom. Then there is stuff I remember that I've never told anyone about. I leaving them off the list, even though they are probably just as bad if not worse than the others.

So it sounds like more than the top three should be addressed as well to help the healing process. What I was thinking about is ..is it possible that the major traumas give power to the lesser traumas. If you address and get control of those memories will the other follow suit under that control. Does that make sense?
Let's say I list my top three, therapy works to where I control the memories and they don't control me. Will the other traumas fall under that control I have or will those also have to be addressed individually? Things that make you go hmmmmmmm.

What is good news is that with modern brain research and the mind (neuroscience, neurobiology, epigenetics) they have found that once you deal with even one mild trauma (and any trauma for that matter) that in doing so (with a professional or using such methods) you have told the brain HOW to file that trauma.

Not only does it file that trauma but will continue "on it's own" to seek out all such trauma in your memories and file those as well.

Pure and simple: you do not have to work through each and every trauma occurrence to heal.

Wow, thanks for responding and answering that question. That is great news. Does the worst trauma need to be dealt with first or can you address the lesser traumas first to achieve that?

The traumas that bother me most:
--My mother's alcoholism and emotional abuse
--My father's physical and emotional abuse
--My second husband's physical, emotional, and sexual abuse
--My ex-fiance's emotional abuse and alcoholism

There are other traumas but those are the ones I work hard on in therapy.

Did you see what "JD" wrote? How do you feel about it? I'm really hoping that it's true and that working on one major trauma will make the others not be so controlling over me.

I think it makes sense that working through one trauma, helps you "learn" ways to handle other ones. As of yet, I haven't actually been able to work through any of my trauma. Still working on handling the impacts of what has happened with my daughter over the last year.

I saw that. I'm aware that the brain can be reprogrammed; however I still have emotional flashbacks and bad memories that make me wince. Maybe with more practice it may work.

We can only hope.

A list? Maybe I should try it. Honestly, I don't know which ones were worse. They all sucked and have melted together. Don't know if this is in order but:

* Abandonment
* Emotional Abuse
* Parental Alcoholism
* Physical Abuse
* Various other kinds of abuse (it hurts too much to even write them down).

The therapy I've tried: Talk therapy, CBT and specialized trauma therapy w/brain spotting.

I'm a flake, otherwise these things could actually help me, but I back out too easily. I'm just not ready to deal with it all.

You make a very good point of having to be ready to deal with the emotion. But how do you get ready when you are hurting so bad? Therapy is very confusing. I've only quit on one thing and that was DBT, it just wasn't the right time for that. May try it again later. I am determined to see this PE therapy through, not that I haven't wanted to quit many times, like that second session. But there's where a good therapist knew how to talk to me and make me see there's progress it's just slow. Just had a couple more sessions, but then she added a few more. She's a tenacious T. She's one of the few that are up for a challenge, who want to know you and makes you believe that. I'm so tired of those T's who say what do you want to talk about today, with me being totally stressed out I don't know and I say that. So then the T would say okay see you at the next appointment in a month or two. And there are a lot of them out there like that. They need to find another profession.

Here are some of my childhood traumas (there may be more that are more deeply burled).

Abandonment (Mother)
Neglect (Father)
Long term existential threat confinement (Revolution)
Combat (Revolution, War, Civil Unrest)
Hunger (Revolution)
Combat Injury (Civil Unrest, head wound, concussion)
Múltiple Risky(dangerous) Evacuations
Alcoholism (both parents)
Violent Civil Unrest
Friend Killed (line drive right between the eyes)
Exocutions (Revolution)

Some more:

Amoebic Dysentary (almost died)
Feline Attack (bloody, bloody mess!)
Aircraft nose dive into the Sahara

Just realized I never answered your question, which is a very good and valid one.

I don't know how to get ready in this state. Hopefully, once my medication is finally all adjusted, dealing with the trauma won't be as daunting of a task. Right now, with as chaotic as my mind is, the task is too overwhelming.

It is difficult to make a list, but i can see that it would be helpful. I might start to feel like my entire life has been a trauma, though.
I have worked on about four things in counseling. I talk and they listen. They give me some feedback. What helps me is sharing my truths with my counselor, admitting the dysfunctions, exposing my self loathing, and being heard, even feeling loved and admired by my counsellors at times. Through the process I gain power and self worth. Group therapy helped me to open up to myself. Meeting others with PTSD made me see myself more clearly.
I would do so many things differently, but I did the best I could. If I had done things differently, things could have been worse...who knows.
I have worked through a couple traumas. One I talked about in counseling (cancer), the other..no. They were both health related and life threatening. The one I didn't talk about has a big abandonment element, and too much for me to say to a counselor. I've overcome it because the person who basically left me to die (say they didn't know I needed help, yet I begged them to help, and wasn't listened to) does now have the capacity to care about my health and well being, and is always there for me.
Both these traumas still give me trouble, but I don't have PTSD from them now...?

I am so sorry you went through all of this. My son did two year tours in Iraq, but he won't talk about it.

i'm interested in that last part

you ask would you have done anything diffrently?

do you mean in therapy, or in the past to try and prevent the trauma

I know for me, the biggist thing is interaction with my mother

it's really shaped who I am today, and I really don't think any amount of therapy is going to fix that.

Katydid my experience now is that it is good to talk to someone about your experiences. He doesn't have to get into gory details, just speak in more general terms. Keeping it inside all the time is not good. On the other hand obsessing about traumas doesn't help him to stabilize or normalize back into society. He needs to find a balance. Lots of association and time with kids and animals helps me alot. A lot of hugs from mom helps alot, too. Shalom.

good post.
I can agree with what's been said here

Some more wonderful childhood traumas:

Violent teacher attack
Watched a city burn on multiple occasions
Have three full grown men surround me at arms length then proceed to verbally and physically threaten to kill me ( saved by my brother who is now passed)
Have gun held directly on me by an "unfriendly" at a military checkpoint out in the middle of nowhere

i've worked thru most of my childhood traumas, in various ways, long before they were considered a 'syndrome'. i'm still working on de-tox'ing the various ways in which my brain damage has impacted my life,, not always so successfully. but i find that listing recent traumas just upsets me, and makes things worse, so i don't do that.